Changes to Asajj/Acolyte Strategy in STR MEGA THREAD

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No disrespect intended @CG_TopHat but I don't think a wait and see approach is gonna do much to sway player opinion on this one. You took the realization of a team going against the mechanics of the raid, who's main contributing factors in that are traya raid bonuses, and acolyte, and nerfed an entire faction/negated multiple zeta investments as a response. You're basically amputating an arm for a flesh wound.

@CG_TopHat thanks for giving more feedback in 2 minutes than we have gotten in 2 months. I hope you are also aware and monitoring the player bases pulse on issues in the game that we feel have been ignored for a long while. And understand the pattern that CG is cultivating when “fixes” are brought in.

To be clear - I’m not a fan of any type of “loop” or cheese team to get mega damage in the raid , but why make changes so drastic?

Regarding the drastic-ness of the changes, we try to evaluate anything we need to change in the game in a way that will hopefully prevent us from having to "fix" it again. That doesn't always work out, just because of the staggering complexity and the myriad of possible interactions in the game. That said, in reviewing with the Design team, this solution was deemed to help solve a lot of possible edge cases that could pop up in the future. We hope it does.

Regarding the communication, I hear you. It's something we're constantly working on trying to improve. Thanks for the feedback.

No, it's not my final answer. It's my answer for now as we monitor how the change impacts the player base. We recognize it's a pretty big change and want to see how it performs over time.

By nerfing nightsister damage for everyone who built the team. In sure we'll getthe dance response we got after 73 days in the sith raid feedback thread.

It's amazing how quick you are to fix something that only hits a fraction of the player base but how you can't even respond to a thread that your tan started with 1400 comments from frustrated players.

I agree with much of your post, but I disagree when it comes to the zombie. The sisters were my first, and are still my arena team. That means they were my first gear 12 team and have served me well all this time (I started last Oct.), I have been in the top 50 since they became my main team and I still usually finish top 50.

The fact that I was doing what the game says you're supposed to do, progress your team, should not put me at a disadvantage to other people using the same team.

You say " It took about 30 seconds to read the kit and see the synergies were better for weak zombie." That is simply not true for the arena. Yes, people were using that strategy in the beginning, but it soon became clear that if you want to rank really high you needed a strong zombie. It wasn't until the Sith raid when the paper zombie became the team you really wanted.

@CG_TopHat thanks for giving more feedback in 2 minutes than we have gotten in 2 months. I hope you are also aware and monitoring the player bases pulse on issues in the game that we feel have been ignored for a long while. And understand the pattern that CG is cultivating when “fixes” are brought in.

To be clear - I’m not a fan of any type of “loop” or cheese team to get mega damage in the raid , but why make changes so drastic?

Regarding the drastic-ness of the changes, we try to evaluate anything we need to change in the game in a way that will hopefully prevent us from having to "fix" it again. That doesn't always work out, just because of the staggering complexity and the myriad of possible interactions in the game. That said, in reviewing with the Design team, this solution was deemed to help solve a lot of possible edge cases that could pop up in the future. We hope it does.

Regarding the communication, I hear you. It's something we're constantly working on trying to improve. Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah but what, this change HAD to happen right away? Some hasty nerf? You guys need something that makes it so that it doesn't affect current processes.

I really wish CG would start acting like a billion dollar company and not some garage internet start up that doesn't test their own product and simply changes the rules that consequently ruins a team after many of their customers spent months of time and hard earned real money to obtain. This is our lives and real time and money we are spending. Do you not have any respect for the fact that it takes us MONTHS to accumulate teams to play your game effectively that eeks out a little fun.

This is starting to feel like they absolutely have NO respect for our time and lives and it becoming more and more apparent that they don't even think about actual gameplay. They just throw something out there without any thought and when we the customers find a way to outsmart them, they get to change the rules. What kind of shenanigans is this?? If you don't like the intended consequences then properly build and test a better product from the start, but don't pin it on your customer base like we did something wrong. You are ruining months of hard work within seconds and claim "this isn't what we meant".

I am really on the brink of quitting b.c I am getting tired of seeing all the ways the game is so poorly designed (endless scrolling, TW algorithm, nerfs, and endless marquee events).

What is even more amazing is that it seems like the player base actually knows the game BETTER than the designers. It's unreal. Even in reading this post I have seen 5 other solutions that don't ruin a faction.

Goodness, all this grief from a bunch of people that couldn't even do this anyway. It's like being upset with Bentley because they decided to remove cup holders. You dont have Bentley so no worries.

The solo team isn't the issue. The issue is the massive nerf to NS teams

It's not that massive, at least not in heroic. A fully geared zombie with Asaj lead still will easily put up 2 mil damage in phase 4 which is where most guilds use NS anyway. So to get past DN portion 10 people need to attack now instead of 5, not a huge deal. I mean, changing mechanics stinks but it's not the end of the world. Prior to the you tube video I never even used acolyte in sith raid.

I get everyone's frustration, just think it's a little over the top. NS squads will still destroy DN in phase 4, you just remove stacks at 15. Always my strategy anyway and my poorly moddedd squad never did less that 2 mil but usually did around 2.5.

That's all you were getting? It's really not hard to more than double your score with regular old Nightsisters. No Treya infinite loop team needed... or it used to not be hard to double your score, before a 4 Zeta investment team got kicked in the walnuts on a flimsy pretext.

I agree completely. Just never took the time to do it right, my point being if you were getting 5 mil before at worst you wl get 2.5 to 3mil. Still more than enough to destroy DN with 10 attacks.

@CG_TopHat@CG_Carrie I literally just zeta’d my daka yesterday for the raid. Now that these changes make her zeta obsolete, can I get a refund on those zetas? I’m sure the other zetas will still be decent but now spending the last 2-3 months on building my nightsister team to be able to reach the top 5 in heroic sith damage seems almost like a waste for me

No, it's not my final answer. It's my answer for now as we monitor how the change impacts the player base. We recognize it's a pretty big change and want to see how it performs over time.

Don't make the change until you understand the impact is another logical way of resolving the issue. Or just fix isolate in raids..... Do you guys always act so impulsively?!

The reason we responded so quickly on this issue is because we didn't want players to begin to make long term investment decisions around (player ownable) Darth Traya and the raid and have us take it away one months from now. In general, we try to catch these sorts of infinite loops and other overly performant teams early, but we evaluate on a case by case basis. In the past, the Nightsisters didn't cross the threshold. With the introduction of the Critolyte team, we opted to make some changes to Bonds of Weakness that has some impact on Nightsisters.

Our testing in house shows that they are still very good in Phase 4 and still outperform most teams in that Phase. In the balance of things, undercutting Critolyte and leaving the Nightsisters in a very good place made sense to us at the time.

Then undercut the source problem of the health steal. You’re grossly underestimating the impact 20 bonds of weakness has on the overall impact of the damage. If we can’t heal to 100% then asajj lead becomes useless in the raid. If we can’t have zombie go down multiple times then her unique is useless and gets nerfed. See how this stacks on itself to make things worse?
I appreciate the communication on this, as we could use some regarding the rewards that hasn’t been crying for answers for months now, but this isn’t the right thing to do

@CG_TopHat thanks for giving more feedback in 2 minutes than we have gotten in 2 months. I hope you are also aware and monitoring the player bases pulse on issues in the game that we feel have been ignored for a long while. And understand the pattern that CG is cultivating when “fixes” are brought in.

To be clear - I’m not a fan of any type of “loop” or cheese team to get mega damage in the raid , but why make changes so drastic?

Regarding the drastic-ness of the changes, we try to evaluate anything we need to change in the game in a way that will hopefully prevent us from having to "fix" it again. That doesn't always work out, just because of the staggering complexity and the myriad of possible interactions in the game. That said, in reviewing with the Design team, this solution was deemed to help solve a lot of possible edge cases that could pop up in the future. We hope it does.

Regarding the communication, I hear you. It's something we're constantly working on trying to improve. Thanks for the feedback.

I can help with the communication. Communicate. If the cm is too busy- hire a player to dev liaison. Make it a volunteer thing. People will do it.

I think the bigger issue is the fact that they are going after the Paper Zombie strategy. That will tick off many players who invested in NS because the strategy worked. It doesn't effect me and what I run, but it will many others.

To be fair it depends on exactly what they do to the zombie. But if it results in zombie dying less its gonna be received with absolute fire. She's supposed to die, that's how she helps me.

I'm fine with fixing the problem that gearing her is a weird disadvantage. It is sort of nonsense, but if that means "we ruin her utility for everyone" then... just... why.

The BoW fix is dumb. Just make Acolyte hit twice on one attack with stealth instead of actually attacking twice.

Goodness, all this grief from a bunch of people that couldn't even do this anyway. It's like being upset with Bentley because they decided to remove cup holders. You dont have Bentley so no worries.

The solo team isn't the issue. The issue is the massive nerf to NS teams

It's not that massive, at least not in heroic. A fully geared zombie with Asaj lead still will easily put up 2 mil damage in phase 4 which is where most guilds use NS anyway. So to get past DN portion 10 people need to attack now instead of 5, not a huge deal. I mean, changing mechanics stinks but it's not the end of the world. Prior to the you tube video I never even used acolyte in sith raid.

I get everyone's frustration, just think it's a little over the top. NS squads will still destroy DN in phase 4, you just remove stacks at 15. Always my strategy anyway and my poorly moddedd squad never did less that 2 mil but usually did around 2.5.

That's all you were getting? It's really not hard to more than double your score with regular old Nightsisters. No Treya infinite loop team needed... or it used to not be hard to double your score, before a 4 Zeta investment team got kicked in the walnuts on a flimsy pretext.

Seriously, there are dozens of YouTube videos that show how to do 5-10MM easily with NS. I do @50% of nihilus. A few can solo him, but not sion. The average NS squad is about 3-4MM now. After the nerf, it'll be about half of that, making them marginally better than a half **** squad. Hell, a MT zeta lead is probably better than asaj after this rework

I think the bigger issue is the fact that they are going after the Paper Zombie strategy. That will tick off many players who invested in NS because the strategy worked. It doesn't effect me and what I run, but it will many others.

To be fair it depends on exactly what they do to the zombie. But if it results in zombie dying less its gonna be received with absolute fire. She's supposed to die, that's how she helps me.

I'm fine with fixing the problem that gearing her is a weird disadvantage. It is sort of nonsense, but if that means "we ruin her utility for everyone" then... just... why.

The BoW fix is dumb. Just make Acolyte hit twice on one attack with stealth instead of actually attacking twice.

I’m thinking zombie will have a gear threshold. That will snowball into events and raids with a certain gear threshold as well.

I think everyone should just finish the str or hstr and not start another one in protest! This isn't fixing the raid it's not help it on our side it's just going to make even less fun and harder. This raid is only doing one thing killing the game! Especially how they are treating it, when are they going to realize it SUCKS!

In all seriousness, I just gave a useless zeta to Daka that I wanted to give to fulcrum, Ezra, and traya because I didn’t want to lose out on top 5 rewards for the guys in my guild that post ridiculous scores with NS. That’s tough to swallow.

@CG_TopHat thanks for giving more feedback in 2 minutes than we have gotten in 2 months. I hope you are also aware and monitoring the player bases pulse on issues in the game that we feel have been ignored for a long while. And understand the pattern that CG is cultivating when “fixes” are brought in.

To be clear - I’m not a fan of any type of “loop” or cheese team to get mega damage in the raid , but why make changes so drastic?

Regarding the drastic-ness of the changes, we try to evaluate anything we need to change in the game in a way that will hopefully prevent us from having to "fix" it again. That doesn't always work out, just because of the staggering complexity and the myriad of possible interactions in the game. That said, in reviewing with the Design team, this solution was deemed to help solve a lot of possible edge cases that could pop up in the future. We hope it does.

Regarding the communication, I hear you. It's something we're constantly working on trying to improve. Thanks for the feedback.

are you really serious about the "constantly" part, because I MUST have missed it? Please point me in the direction of these communications that I clearly missed. There are two things you guys are constant in, 1. Making the game LESS fun and making the player base MORE angry.

It’s 6:18 in Cali. That office is closing. And we will be left here to scream into the void. Honestly don’t. Enjoy your weekends if you can. Get the zetas back. @Ender22 don’t quit por favor. The forums need more peeps like you on here.

@CG_TopHat Can you explain why CG chose 20 stacks as opposed to 50? or 100? You could even make 100 stacks an insta-kill on the whole squad or something. No one was getting to 100 unless they were stuck in a loop anyway.

@CG_TopHat thanks for giving more feedback in 2 minutes than we have gotten in 2 months. I hope you are also aware and monitoring the player bases pulse on issues in the game that we feel have been ignored for a long while. And understand the pattern that CG is cultivating when “fixes” are brought in.

To be clear - I’m not a fan of any type of “loop” or cheese team to get mega damage in the raid , but why make changes so drastic?

Regarding the drastic-ness of the changes, we try to evaluate anything we need to change in the game in a way that will hopefully prevent us from having to "fix" it again. That doesn't always work out, just because of the staggering complexity and the myriad of possible interactions in the game. That said, in reviewing with the Design team, this solution was deemed to help solve a lot of possible edge cases that could pop up in the future. We hope it does.

Regarding the communication, I hear you. It's something we're constantly working on trying to improve. Thanks for the feedback.

are you really serious about the "constantly" part, because I MUST have missed it? Please point me in the direction of these communications that I clearly missed. There are two things you guys are constant in, 1. Making the game LESS fun and making the player base MORE angry.

It’s 6:18 in Cali. That office is closing. And we will be left here to scream into the void. Honestly don’t. Enjoy your weekends if you can. Get the zetas back. @Ender22 don’t quit por favor. The forums need more peeps like you on here.

@CG_TopHat please, nerf nsa to - 50% stealth vs raid bosses. Or, better yet, nerf isolate to 25% health steal vs raid bosses. Hell, do NO health steal against raid bosses for all we care. All of these leave the core of the game unchanged while removing the loop/cheese team, and having everyone be happy. Otherwise, like you did with barris, you need to offer refunds to anyone who invested zetas in NS after the raid started. I never, ever would have done daka unique, asaj unique, mt unique, or asaj lead zetas if not for the str. I would have done MT lead instead, like everyone else here

No, it's not my final answer. It's my answer for now as we monitor how the change impacts the player base. We recognize it's a pretty big change and want to see how it performs over time.

Don't make the change until you understand the impact is another logical way of resolving the issue. Or just fix isolate in raids..... Do you guys always act so impulsively?!

The reason we responded so quickly on this issue is because we didn't want players to begin to make long term investment decisions around (player ownable) Darth Traya and the raid and have us take it away one months from now. In general, we try to catch these sorts of infinite loops and other overly performant teams early, but we evaluate on a case by case basis. In the past, the Nightsisters didn't cross the threshold. With the introduction of the Critolyte team, we opted to make some changes to Bonds of Weakness that has some impact on Nightsisters.

Our testing in house shows that they are still very good in Phase 4 and still outperform most teams in that Phase. In the balance of things, undercutting Critolyte and leaving the Nightsisters in a very good place made sense to us at the time.

you didn't want players to make "long term investment decisions around traya and the raid" like...get traya? Because then we could more easily beat...the event that gets us traya, after already beating it so much that we already have a 7* traya??

What other long terms goals could you be referring to? Getting NSA geared? Zetas for NS??

I'm usually anti-whine around here but that answer literally makes no sense

No, it's not my final answer. It's my answer for now as we monitor how the change impacts the player base. We recognize it's a pretty big change and want to see how it performs over time.

I have a sincere question for you that I think deserves an answer. Forget for a moment the money I’ve spent, the gear I farmed and the zetas I invested in this squad. Do you understand that many of us put lots of time we could have spent with our families or doing other things we enjoy into learning this team and perfecting the mechanics so we could finish at the top of the raid? Do you understand that this squad was the ONLY one in the entire raid that actually required skill instead of restart after restart until the RNG broke your way? Do you understand that this feels like a slap in the face? That you are essentially telling us that all that time we invested to actually get good at the raid is now meaningless? Do you understand that who finishes top 3 in the raid now depends on who got the best dice roll and not who has worked hardest to learn the mechanics?

Sorry you spent all that time trying to get good. Go back and restart Chex 100 more times and hope Han gets more counters in so you can squeeze out another 500k for first place.

Honestly, I want to know whether you realize how personally insulted many of us feel.

It’s 6:18 in Cali. That office is closing. And we will be left here to scream into the void. Honestly don’t. Enjoy your weekends if you can. Get the zetas back. @Ender22 don’t quit por favor. The forums need more peeps like you on here.

Wasnt cg advertising paper zombie as a mechanic? Didnt they say "WAI - change your teams" when people were complaining about the acolyte cheese in arena a few months ago?

The changes as proposed, coupled with the forthcoming change to paper zombie, literally make nightsisters useless. They have no purpose in the end game any longer.

It also directly nerfs newly released characters and their abilities on the raid (namely young solo and big Z). Does CG intend to refund the money spent on resources to level those characters @CG_CapGaSP@CG_TopHat ? Or is this another instance where "communication" actually means "delivering news that screws the playerbase and then ignoring them"?

Just want to chime in and say that we are still figuring out what the changes to Zombie look like, but we've got some really solid leads. Our goal is to make Zombie still fit her roll as the same constantly dying awesome taunting tank she's always been. We're also looking at how we bring some of the juice of her constantly dying under the Paper Zombie paradigm and bring that into the powered up Zombie.

You should have led with this. And only this. You got the community in an uproar teasing a nerf in front of our face without this explanation. Players care about their investment more than your reasoning on 'why to focus on constant improvement.'

Nerfing the ns as a whole is a terrible idea now. People have invented zetas, omegas, gear, credits etc. Into that team. You want to change bonds to be limited to 40 or 50 that's fine. Don't change how a team is used bc people with a 7* traya found a weakness. Maybe just change how traya works in the raid.